Part of our blog assignments allows us to choose some posts of ‘our choice.’ Since I am trying out this whole blogging thing, and not sure if it’s something I want to do…I thought I might as well throw some more personal stuff into the mix.
Recently, I have been reading the headline news online (abc, bbc, bangkok post, etc) and sharing the most hilarious and/or fascinating stories I encounter with anyone who seems interested. These last few weeks, however, I have been traveling and my Internet connectivity was severely limited (sad how this impacts us and we feel ‘cut off’ from the world when we can’t be connected). So I had to resort to the good old fashioned perusal of a real live hard copy newspaper.
My mother and I are sitting on the Seattle Ferry, sipping a latte and passing the paper back and forth, sharing little tid bits here and there. We happened to have grabbed a copy of the Kitsap Sun as my mother lives in Poulsbo, WA. As we’re leisurely enjoying our cup of joe, my mother suddenly begins to giggle quietly. Pretty soon she’s erupted into convulsive laughter that she’s trying to stifle, which is just resulting in an even more fantastic display of her choking on her fits of giggles. As I watch her body spasm with the force of her mirth, I begin to wonder if she is in need of medical attention. Finally she manages to choke out past the tears streaming down her cheeks “dolphins…gasp…handcuffs….gasp…intruders!” And then I lose her again for another fit of convulsions.
Eventually I managed to wrest the newspaper from her grip and determine the cause of her mirth. I find the article titled “Dolphin Patrols Pick Up Support” and quickly scan the print. I’m going to share with you some direct quotes from the article (I promise they are DIRECTLY quoted, I am not making this up…I’m not that clever really!):
“…opponents knitted sweaters, hats and mittens for the dolphins. They did so because they believed the warm-water mammals would get chilly swimming in Hood Canal.”
The article goes on the talk about the program that has been developed at the Bangor Naval Base and it’s use of marine life:
“The dolphins, accompanied by a handler in small power boats, work at night. If they find an intruder, they swim back to the boat and alert the handler, who places a strobe light on their nose. The dolphin races back and bumps the intruder’s back, knocking the light off. The light floats to the surface, marking the spot.”
Can you imagine? Out for a nice swim and suddenly a dolphin is whacking you on the back with a strobe light? Don’t worry, the program does not exclusively use dolphins. It has also recruited sea lions to assist in the protection against terrorism:
Suspicious Swimmer?
“Sea lions can carry in their mouths special cuffs attached to long ropes. If they find a suspicious swimmer, they clamp the cuff around the person’s leg. The intruder can then be reeled in for questioning.”
I’ve got to read the hard copy newspaper more often…this takes the cake! Just remember, if you do plan to swim in the Hood Canal, look as ‘un-suspicious’ as possible or you could find yourself wrangled by a sea lion. One has to wonder, what does a suspicious swimmer look like to a sea lion??
Truth and bias are things we have always struggled with addressing in a classroom, aren’t they? They really are not new concepts that we now have to figure out.
Prior to the advent of a Web 2.0 classroom, the truth and biases we faced were the ones of the teachers, text book publishers and students. Now we address these ideas on a more global scale. Maybe one could even argue that this then actually reduces bias in a classroom. With the click of a few buttons, we have a global perspective… Clarence writes about an example of how he helped his students to reach a deeper understanding of truth and bias. They reviewed multiple reports from around the world about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts that are happening in Gaza. They were exposed to many truths and biases. His kids are leaving his class with a better grasp of what truth and bias really are. For me to achieve a similar understanding, I had to grow up, get a Master’s degree, and move to Saudi Arabia for a few years!
I am not saying that we shouldn’t help kids (and ourselves) to understand how to filter information, how to verify facts, and how to analyze whether what we’re reading is reliable or not. Chris Betcher did an excellent job of sharing loads of tips and techniques for navigating the Web with students. However, I found myself focusing not on the idea that ‘finally we can safely navigate the web’ but instead ‘finally we can be exposed to a lot of truths and then use those to form our own truths.’
I felt a strong kinship with Barbara’s post where she examines how our passions guide us down the path towards discovering truth. Yet she stops to wonder:
“Does this passion result in a greater effort to find the truth or an inherent bias?”
She continues with the idea of encouraging ‘investigators’ or students to find the alternative view points to their truths, challenge themselves to admit their bias and be open to the idea that ‘compelling arguments may win the day.’ What if this was the way we approached information online? What if instead of being afraid of this barrage of information, we embraced it and all of its imperfections? What if we found our passions and formed our truths…
by 
My mother and I are sitting on the Seattle Ferry, sipping a latte and passing the paper back and forth, sharing little tid bits here and there. We happened to have grabbed a copy of the Kitsap Sun as my mother lives in Poulsbo, WA. As we’re leisurely enjoying our cup of joe, my mother suddenly begins to giggle quietly. Pretty soon she’s erupted into convulsive laughter that she’s trying to stifle, which is just resulting in an even more fantastic display of her choking on her fits of giggles. As I watch her body spasm with the force of her mirth, I begin to wonder if she is in need of medical attention. Finally she manages to choke out past the tears streaming down her cheeks “dolphins…gasp…handcuffs….gasp…intruders!” And then I lose her again for another fit of convulsions.“The dolphins, accompanied by a handler in small power boats, work at night. If they find an intruder, they swim back to the boat and alert the handler, who places a strobe light on their nose. The dolphin races back and bumps the intruder’s back, knocking the light off. The light floats to the surface, marking the spot.”
Truth and bias are things we have always struggled with addressing in a classroom, aren’t they? They really are not new concepts that we now have to figure out. 
Clarence